SourceForge on Tuesday announced that it has pulled the plug on its DevShare program amid growing rebellion from software developers and a change of ownership. SourceForge Media announced the termination notice with a promise of other policy changes coming soon. DevShare was an opt-in revenue-sharing program for developers that was started in 2013.

Amazon on Tuesday announced that it has widened its footprint in the game industry, complementing its development studio with the Lumberyard 3D game engine. Based on core components of Crytek's CryEngine, Lumberyard will support development for PCs and consoles (Xbox One and PlayStation 4). Amazon plans to add support for mobile devices and virtual reality gear soon.

The Rosa Desktop Fresh R series optimizes desktop usage and targets advanced users and enthusiasts looking for rich functionality. Add to that mix the default KDE flavoring and you have a compelling Linux distro. The typical Rosa user already is familiar with basic Linux offerings and wants a product with customization and personalization possibilities. That is what Rosa Desktop delivers.

Zenwalk is a Linux distro that seems to be in a state of flux. I took a gamble with the Zenwalk 8.0 beta edition, released last month, after several colleagues raved about its improvements. Chalk that up to potentially bad advice. It's not that Zenwalk is a bad distro. It is an uncooperative and strange experience. A lot can be said about not having to struggle with a problematic OS version.

Walmart on Tuesday announced that it has posted the code for its OneOps cloud application life cycle management platform on GitHub. The company developed OneOps for building and launching cloud applications across frequently changing storage environments. It lets e-commerce vendors deploy apps on platforms from Microsoft, Rackspace and CenturyLink to OpenStack private or hybrid environments.

Nelum OS is a light and fast live-installable Linux distribution family offering three separate releases. The distro is a brand-new entry to the land of Linux, with its initial release posted earlier this month. It is an unusual twist on what you usually see with a Linux release. For example, the virtual desktops can be changed simply by scrolling the mouse wheel or finger scrolling the touchpad.

Brave Software, helmed by Brendan Eich, who cofounded Mozilla and created the JavaScript programming language, on Tuesday released the 0.7 developer version of its Brave browser. Brave is an open source project that promises to block Internet greed and ugliness, while improving speed and protecting privacy. Basically, it blocks ads containing tracking pixels and cookies.

Google Chrome users will get faster Web access soon through the Brotli open source compression algorithm, which has been rolled out to the M49 release of Chrome. That's in Canary -- which is designed for devs -- so it's not clear when Brotli will surface in the browser. It gives 20 to 26 percent higher compression ratios over its Zopfli algorithm and provides faster page loads, the company said.

The latest release of the Linux distro now called "Depth OS" deserves serious consideration. It is fast, reliable and innovative, with an impressive homegrown desktop design dubbed "Deepin Desktop Environment." Depth OS has a bit of an identity problem. The open source community that developed the distro seems to have a difficult time deciding what to call it.

Qualys on Thursday reported a flaw in the OpenSSH client that could let a hacker steal the client's private crypto keys. The bug is the result of an undocumented feature called "roaming" that exists in version 5.4 and above. It's one of two vulnerabilities that a malicious SSH server or a trusted but compromised server can exploit, Qualys said. The other is a heap-based buffer overflow.

The Linux Foundation this week announced an expansion of the Dronecode project with investments from new members and the creation of three technical working groups. The foundation launched the open source project in 2014 in an effort to create a unified platform for commercial drone technology. Twenty-seven companies have joined Dronecode since, bringing membership to 51, officials said.

Black Duck Software on Tuesday announced it has added to its Hub software container-scanning capabilities that let users map open source security flaws for applications, Linux distros, and other software in Docker and other Linux containers. Adding a containerized scanner to a Docker host enables automatic identification of known open source vulnerabilities in all layers of containers on the host.

The Solus Project is much like the little engine that still can't function. Version 1.0 was released last month as the first stable release from the twice-revamped Linux distro. Solus is built from scratch for the x86_64 architecture around a rewritten Budgie homemade desktop environment. Budgie offers a simplified approach to implementing the look and feel of older-style GNOME 2 functionality.

The Chapeau project's latest version arrived last month and is a good choice for enterprise users who want something a step above the traditional Fedora distro. An iconic Linux distro, Fedora is a very popular choice in enterprise shops, but it's less than ideal for home and SMB use without an IT staff to make it work. That is where Chapeau 23 comes to the rescue.

The Linux Foundation last week announced it was teaming up with a group of high-tech and financial giants on a project to advance the blockchain technology made famous by bitcoin virtual currency. IBM, Cisco and Intel have agreed to collaborate with a number of financial institutions and other companies to develop an enterprise-grade open source distributed ledger framework.

Slack this week announced its participation in an $80 million investment campaign to fund startups that build software that integrates with its own apps. The company also announced the availability of an app directory and a new development framework. The goal is to position Slack as a hub for connecting users to other cloud business software. Slack is partnership with six other investors.

GeckoLinux is a custom spin of the openSuse project. It offers an impressive variety of options and easier operation than typical Suse-based Linux distros provide.
GeckoLinux is a newcomer. I mean very new. Its first release was last week. You shouldn't view this distro as a wailing infant, however. It's based on openSuse Leap 42.1 and was leapfrogged into near-instant maturity from Suse Studio.

Mozilla on Wednesday confirmed that it has hung up on the Firefox OS mobile phone and will try using the operating system to dial into other connected device uses instead. The company spent several years developing a browser-based smartphone OS. It ended its sales program of the Firefox mobile operating system to carriers and will no longer develop the OS for smartphones, Mozilla said.

Microsoft last week revealed that it will release the core components of its Chakra JavaScript engine to open source as ChakraCore. It will be available next month on GitHub under the MIT license. ChakraCore offers best-in-class JavaScript execution with the broadest set of ES2015 feature coverage and dependable performance, reliability and scalability, Microsoft said.

BunsenLabs Linux does a bang-up job of picking up where CrunchBang Linux left off. Developer Philip Newborough retired the popular minimalist distro earlier this year. In a world of feature-packed operating systems and bloated Linux distros, he felt his CrunchBang alternative served no further purpose. BunsenLabs is one of three CrunchBang replacements that mimic the lightweight but functional OS.

Open source is driving an ever-expanding market. The notion of community-driven development is a growing disruption to proprietary software controlled by commercial vendors, and the free open source software concept has become a major disruption in industry and technology. Open source is so pervasive that people overlook how it's the glue of modern communication and enterprise business models.

Google last week released a preview of Android Studio 2.0 at the inaugural Android Dev Summit in Mountain View, California. The preview offers several updates, including Instant Run and a new GPU Profiler. Instant Run lets developers see changes to code running on their devices or emulators, while the GPU Profiler lets users profile their OpenGL ES Android code.

Vinux 5.0 is a striking example of the flexibility and usability of the Linux OS. Vinux is a fully functional Linux distro that caters to blind and partially sighted users. It's based on Ubuntu Trusty Tahr 14.04.3 LTS and gives users support through 2019. The latest version was released earlier this month. It greatly improves on the usability features of other Linux distributions.

Microsoft this week announced at its Connect conference in New York City an expansion of its developer tools with a focus on Linux, Android and open source. The move is an effort to help close the gap between Microsoft's developer platforms and the open source world. The programs include free access for developers who are getting started, updates to .NET, and the renaming of Visual Studio Online.

Ubuntu Studio 15.10 is a one-stop Linux OS shop for most creative people. It bundles a nearly full range of multimedia content-creation applications for workflows involving audio, graphics, video, photography and publishing. The developers describe this distro as a multimedia content-creation hub for all five creative workflows. The last element -- publishing -- is the weakest link.

The Linux Foundation on Thursday announced that it's forming the OpenHPC Collaborative Project to push the software supply to support high-powered computing. The project will provide a new open source framework to meet HPC's application demands and parallel runtime requirements. The framework will provide upstream project components, tools and interconnections to enable the software stack.

Google released TensorFlow, its second-generation machine learning system, to the open source community. It's offering TensorFlow as a standalone library with associated tools, tutorials and examples under the Apache 2.0 license. Google uses TensorFlow in deep learning, Google Search and other applications. Apps built with TensorFlow can move seamlessly from desktops to mobile phones.

DJI on Monday unveiled a high-performance embedded computer running Ubuntu 14.04 for use in its Matrice 100 drone. The Manifold supports CUDA, OpenCV and ROS, and it is compatible with third-party sensors. It lets developers connect a variety of devices -- including infrared cameras, atmospheric research devices, and geographical surveying equipment -- to the Matrice 100.

Element14 on Tuesday revealed an exclusive agreement to offer OEM customers bespoke designs based on the Raspberry Pi platform. Raspberry Pi -- which has seen success in the educational and maker fields -- is targeting commercial manufacturers and the Internet of Things, signing up Premier Farnell through the latter's element14 brand to customize its boards.

KaOS is an efficient Linux distribution built around a refined KDE desktop environment that just keeps getting better. The KDE integration is more controlled than other Linux choices. I reviewed this distro last year, and I was impressed then with the solid performance of KaOS. The latest version takes it a step further, adding a calming, cleaner look and feel to the user interface.